Massification and Quality Assurance in Tertiary Education: The Nigerian Experience

The study sets out to examine massification and its impact on quality assurance in tertiary education and the extent to which lecturer–student ratio,adequacy of infrastructure and pedagogical resources affect quality in tertiaryinstitutions. Two research questions and one hypothesis were posed to guide the investigation. The study, which adopted a survey design approach, has as its population lecturers in tertiary institutions. Through stratified and randomsampling techniques, 432 lecturers and students were selected and the instrument for data collection was questionnaire. The study found that lecturer–student ratio, adequacy of infrastructure and pedagogical resources affect quality in tertiary institutions.Keywords: Lecturer-student ratio; Pedagogical resources; Quality assuranc

APPLICATION OF SOIL INFORMATION IN NIGERIAN AGRICULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF SOME HORTICULTURAL FARMS IN IBADAN, OYO STATE.

Soil information is a critical element in any agricultural venture. It often provides the missing link between assumptions and actuality in agricultural and non agricultural land use. A field study was carried out to assess the effects of poor application of soil information and the present level of soil information and utilization among small scale horticultural crop farmers in Ibadan, Oyo state. Six candidate citrus trees each were selected from two citrus orchards planted on suitable and marginally suitable soils based on available soil survey information which was monitored over two seasons, while structured questionnaires were administered to get empirical data on land use by the farmers. There was over 35% yield difference and this was significantly different (P <0.05) with loss of some trees after 15 years of establishment of the orchard on marginally suitable soils. Mean yield per tree was 50.43kg and 30.12kg for suitable and marginally suitable plots respectively. None of the respondents sought professional advice on land use or have knowledge of previous land use type while the farms were not surveyed before use. 56.27% of the farmers do not carry out soil test while less than 10% of the farmers apply fertilizers suggesting nutrient mining with an average land use period of 14years. The findings of this work show that soil information is not adequately utilized among horticultural crop farmers in Oyo state. Therefore, there is need to enlighten farmers on the need for accurate soil information and application for enhanced horticultural crop production

Investigating a Science Gateway for an Agent-Based Simulation Application Using REPAST

The benefits of using e-Infrastructure environments, such as cloud, grid, and high performance computing, for performing scientific experiments could be quite significant. In particular, modeling and simulation, which can serve as a key decision making and system analysis tool, could benefit immensely from such environments ranging from issues of how a community of practice could access a simulation to how it could be run quickly. However, the access and use of these e-Infrastructure environments may present a completely different set of challenges, most especially for non-ICT users. Science Gateways (SG), which are digital interfaces to advanced technologies, can be used to overcome the challenges of running many simulations on e- Infrastructures in a reasonable amount of time. In this work, we developed a SG, based on the Liferay portal framework and the Catania grid and cloud engine. We show how an Agent- Based infection simulation, which has been implemented using the Recursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit (REPAST) Simphony, can be ported to a Science Gateway and deployed on distributed computing infrastructures. This demonstration illustrates how this technology can be used easily to allow multiple users across the world to access a simulation and to execute their applications in an e-Infrastructures environment.Special thanks go to the team at the University of Catania for their support and the provision of the infrastructures that enable the execution of our ABMS application jobs. This work was part-funded by the H2020 project Energising Scientific Endeavour through Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa (Sci-GaIA) (project number 654237)

Demonstrating open science for modeling & simulation research

Most conference and journal publications present contributions based on research artefacts (data, results, software, etc.) that are difficult for researchers to access. Open science aims to promote open access to research presented in academic works. Ideally, the software, data and results presented in a scientific article should be available for other scientists to use, validate and build upon for their own research. This is particularly true in some Modeling & Simulation (M&S) research where in addition to the above access might also be required to complex models. Using a case study based on an Infection Model, this demonstration shows how Open Science approaches based on Digital Object Identifiers, Researcher Registries, Open Access Data Repositories, Scientific Gateways and e-Infrastructures project can support M&S research.This work partially supported by the H2020 Energising Scientific Endeavour through Science Gateways and e-Infrastructures in Africa (Sci-GaIA) project (GA# 654237)

Women’s Access to Land and Economic Empowerment in Selected Nigerian Communities

Despite various land policies that prescribe rights to land in many societies, women remain marginalized in access to and economic utilization of land. This is widespread in rural communities where informal institutions such as customs and traditions subsist. In most of these communities, the patriarchal structure of families is championed by the informal institutions that support male dominance. This study focuses on economic empowerment of women as it encapsulates sustainable wealth of women. It provides answers to two main research questions: a) what kind of relationship exists between land access and empowerment of women? And b) how important are individual and household attributes in informing women’s empowerment through land rights? The empirical results of this study provide some new insights as they demonstrate how land rights influence women’s economic empowerment. The study also finds that women’s earning capacity reduces when they take up the responsibility of becoming the heads of households and that their income increases as they become more educate

Microbiological Characterization of Grilled Meat “Tchatchanga” in Cotonou (Southern Benin): Enumeration, Isolation and Resistance Profile of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli

Collective food-borne diseases are the reason for a considerable number of deaths in developing countries. The contamination of meat is often noticed. The purpose of the present study was to enumerate, isolate and evaluate the resistance profile of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli in grilled meat consumed in Southern Benin. To achieve this goal, 30 thirty samples of grilled meat “Tchatchanga” were collected in three districts of the city of Cotonou. After collection, the samples were identified, stored in a cooler containing cold accumulator’s and sent to the laboratory for analysis. The resistance profile of the different isolated strains was then sought: 30% of the samples were contaminated with Escherichia coli and 100% with Staphylococci. In terms of hygienic quality, 70% of the samples were of unsatisfactory. Of the 30 staphylococcal strains, 11 were identified as Staphylococcus aureus. Regarding the strain resistance profile, 88.89% of the Escherichia coli strains were multi-resistant compared to 72.72% of Staphylococcus aureus. This study revealed the necessity of urgent actions to ensure food safety in Benin